Heroes exist for several reasons. They are role models, they inspire to action, they can set unexpected examples of extraordinary courage, resilience, and strength. They remind us of sacrifice for a greater cause - a child’s life or a social movement, and anything in between.
Part of our reflection on how to live our lives can be on these examples. Try it, reflect on the hero you will choose, and the reasons for that choice, and how you may change your behaviours as a result. It may confirm for you a course of action long pondered but never activated. It may remind you of deeds accomplished but not celebrated, or at least not for a long time.
Cultural mythologies have used heroes and their acts (and their opposites, malevolent cowards and traitors) to illustrate the best characteristics of their particular traditions. The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid are Greco-Roman, the Pali Tipitaka is Buddhist,the Bhagavad Gita is Indian. All these texts were initially composed to portray heroic acts that were worthy to be imitated. And they were stories, stories of fabulous people, stories to entertain around a fire, and to inspire in a child’s mind.
I have had several heroes in my life though when I was an adult the attachment waned. And has now returned as I age and I admit to being impressionable once more. A boxing captain at big school who encouraged me into the House competition where I exceeded my own expectations. Churchill, at once resilient and transparent, ready to fight, inspire, lead, paint, orate, write histories, and so much more.
And now? A Frenchwoman who died an ignominious death during World War II and yet was as authentic a philosopher as ever lived. Her name is Simone Weil (pronounced, I think, ‘while’) and she captured my attention - and then my imagination - with her unrelenting commitment to living the roles and norms about which she wrote.
Simone believed in the human race, its compassion and grace. This led her in the years between WWI and WWII to socialism. But she did not just pontificate about it, she lived it. She worked on a fishing trawler in the English Channel for months seeking to emulate the awful existence of a working class person. She taught human rights and mathematics to factory workers in France. She enlisted in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the communists and had to retire when she mistakenly put her foot into a dish of hot oil. She drove Charles de Gaulle crazy with her demands to be parachuted into France behind enemy lines so she could assist the Resistance movement.
In short, Simone lived a life of experience, one might call it experiential learning. Which she captured in her notebooks and left them to Albert Camus to publish -
after her death.
Simone’s writings are captivating because they ring true. Her readiness to endure the outcomes of her principles lifts her almost to saintliness.